U-23 Asian Cup: 7 teams win, China, Uzbekistan, Lebanon and UAE advance second, India is eliminated

The U-23 Asian Cup, which will be started in January 2026, ended all the qualifiers in the early morning of this year. 44 teams competed in three rounds of group stages in 11 countries. In the end, 15 teams joined hands with the host Saudi Arabia to advance directly to the main competition.

The last round of the game kicked off at the same time. The results of China's subsequent games are as follows: Vietnam 1-0 Yemen, Iraq 0-0 Cambodia, South Korea 1-0 Indonesia, Japan 6-1 Kuwait, Philippines 4-0 Nepal, China Taipei 1-3 Bhutan, Kyrgyz 6-0 Sri Lanka, Thailand 2-1 Malaysia, China Hong Kong 1-0 Guam, India 6-0 Brunei, Jordan 2-1 Turkmen, Syria 1-0 Tajik, Qatar 2-1 Bahrain, UAE 2-3 Iran.

The first place in each group is as follows: (1) Jordan scored 9 points and 18 goals; (2) Qatar scored 9 points and 15 goals; (3) South Korea scored 9 points and 13 goals; (4) Iran scored 9 points and 11 goals; (5) Japan scored 9 points and 9 goals; (6) Syria scored 9 points and 4 goals; (7) Vietnam scored 9 points and 4 goals; (8) Australia scored 7 points and 20 goals; (9) Iraq scored 7 goals; (10) Kyrgyzstan scored 7 goals; (11) Thailand scored 7 goals.

Second-place data in the group: (1) China's 7-point net wins 11 goals; (2) Uzbekistan's 7-point net wins 5 goals; (3) Lebanon's 7-point net wins 4 goals; (4) UAE's 6-point net wins 14 goals; (5) India's 6-point net wins 7 goals; (6) Turkmenistan's 6-point net wins 5 goals; (7) Philippines' 6-point net wins 4 goals; (8) Yemen's 6-point net wins 1 goal; (9) Cambodia's 5-point net wins 1 goal; (10) Indonesia's 4-point net wins 4 goals; (11) Kuwait's 4-point net wins -4 goals.

Three rounds of the game, Jordan and Qatar won all the wins. Syria and Thailand both teams rose to the top of the list in the last round to advance. Qatar scored 2 goals and 2-1 in stoppage time to defeat Bahrain, helping the UAE to advance and also squeezed India down and eliminated. South Korea, Vietnam and Australia maintained a clean sheet, while another clean sheet Cambodia was eliminated with 5 points, while five teams including Guam and Brunei did not score.

The Chinese U-22 men's team scored 7 points, 11 goals and 12 goals, becoming the top in the second in the group, and joined hands with [Uz, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates] to become the second in the four best-achieved groups and successfully advanced. Judging from the final result, if China loses 4 goals to Australia and within 4 goals, it can also have 6 points, 7 goals and 12 goals. It can also surpass India by scoring the number of goals, but it needs to be worried until the last moment. Of course, it is not reasonable to reverse the data from the results. After all, if China loses, there may be a tacit draw in the next few games.

Except for withdrawing from the competition in 2022, China has advanced to the main competition in the U-23 Asian Cup, achieving a total of 2 wins and 13 losses. It suffered three consecutive losses in 2013, 2016 and 2020 and was eliminated in the group. In its first match in 2018, Oman won the first victory in team history. Yang Liyu, Li Xiaoming and Wei Shihao scored, and then lost to Uz and Qatar; in 2024, it lost to Japan and South Korea, and in the final match, the UAE 2-1, Xie Wenneng and Liu Zhurun ​​scored.